Award Number : 09D04009 Award-winning item : Public restroom[RESTROOM ITEM 01] Company : TOTO LTD. Producer： Hiromichi Tabata, General Manager, Restroom Div., TOTO LTD. Director： Koichi Yasuda, Yasuda Atelier, Tokyo Institute of Technology Designer： Junichi Tani, Mitsuya Obara, Naomi Toguchi, Masatoshi Yada, Mitsuya Matsuo, Masafumi Hirasawa, Soichiro Aritome, Hiroshi Hase, Takayasu Shimada, Teruko Hino, Kayo Kawakami, Yoshitaka Mukai, Isamu Sato

This is a series of products for use in public restrooms, developed by taking a new look at the essence of the products through examining the ideal form of restrooms in public spaces and what kinds of spaces can be used by anybody easily, aiming to achieve a future standard for restrooms that still will be good after 10 years. Through the development process, its design has been improved through repeated discussions and multifaceted testing over a long period of five years, while repeating assessment not just inside the company but also by specialists such as architects and contractors. Based on the concepts of harmony, unity, universal design, and ecology, it is intended to combine together, at a high level, both a simple design suited to any space and functionality that makes it easy for anybody to use.

Unlike in the traditional development process, development of this design was advanced through though discussion not just within the manufacturer organization alone but also with groups of architectural experts on the essence of a public restroom, to advance development while taking a new look at conventional thinking inside the company and existing concepts. This process was thought to be most important. Cooperation with other sections in areas such as sales and development, and multifaceted assessment of design provided an opportunity to redefine what constitutes good design, making it possible to address the major goal of producing something that can be used continually as a future standard.

Many public restrooms lack a feeling of uniformity as they include collections of fixtures manufactured at different times, resulting in complicated impressions. In particular, multipurpose restrooms have lacked psychological comfort as they combine in a limited floor area the inconsistent materials and heights of various fixtures. This project can be evaluated highly for the way it has reexamined these circumstances from a blank slate, achieving very high levels of both functionality and design. Consideration has been given to both details and the way the fixtures appear in space, for example by organizing the angles of each fixture and standardizing the materials that users touch. Users naturally will use such a beautiful public restroom with better manners, making it possible to keep it clean and sanitary permanently. In addition, while designing this many fixtures based on identical concepts required training numerous developers and designers and sharing concepts between them, the manufacturer's efforts in cooperating with outside architects and carefully employing their ideas throughout the designs is outstanding.